home › Working with photos › Switch to ssd. How to transfer the operating system and programs from HDD to SSD. Most suitable utilities

Switch to ssd. How to transfer the operating system and programs from HDD to SSD. Most suitable utilities

.
Regular hard drives ( HDD) is the slowest component of a modern computer. Solid State Drives ( SSD) significantly exceed them in read-write speed, and after cheaper translation of the operating system ( OS) on an SSD is not that expensive.
To do this, an interface is required on the motherboard SATA(on almost all boards no older than 4 years), better than older versions SATA II or SATA III. The transition makes sense if you have Windows 7 or, in extreme cases, XP.
To begin with, let me remind you once again a sacred rule for every computer owner: data must be stored separately from the operating system, on another physical or virtual disk. Except multiple increases in data security You will save on the capacity of the required SSD drive and get the ability to quickly backup the OS drive.
From the current offers - summer 2012 - pay attention to the new, inexpensive and high-speed model OCZ Vertex 4. Its speed characteristics will not be fully revealed, if you do not have SATA III, and you are not planning to replace the motherboard, you can save money by purchasing OCZ Agility 4.
What need to do? Sixteen simple steps.

I hope I have convinced you that the increase in system boot speed and subtle increase speed of general daily work not worth such effort.

It remains to advise you to take a closer look at what is written in order to configure the system specifically for the program that you want to speed up. For me it was Adobe Photoshop CS5, in the settings of which I specified the paths to the temporary files of the RAW converter and Scratch disks for storing temporary files. For some reason, the Internet connection speed did not increase (smile).

Upd: In addition, I would like to recommend the SSD Mini Tweaker program for x32 and x64 versions, but I would not recommend thoughtlessly using all possible checkboxes, for example, disabling defragmentation of all disks. Above I described how to do this only for SSD. I found it later and used it for convenient control of the work done, which does not underestimate its usefulness.
Good luck always!

Many older (or cheaper) Windows laptops come with traditional mechanical hard drives, which are quite outdated and slow these days. Upgrading to a new, super-fast solid-state drive (or SSD) is the surest way to speed up your old computer. There's one problem: moving your Windows installation can be tricky, especially because SSDs are often smaller than traditional hard drives.

However, there is a way to move your Windows 7, 8 or 10 installation to an SSD without reinstalling Windows. Requires a few extra steps but much less time.

What do you need to migrate your system from hdd to ssd?

Besides your SSD, you'll need a few other things to make this process work. Here's what we recommend:

How to connect your SSD to your computer. If you have a desktop computer, you can simply install a new SSD along with an old HDD on the same machine to clone it. However, if you're using a laptop, this is usually not possible, so you'll need to buy something like a SATA to USB cable (shown on the right), which will allow you to connect a 2.5-inch HDD or SDD to your laptop via USB. You can also install your SSD in an external hard drive enclosure before starting the migration process, although this is a little more time consuming.
A copy of EaseUS Todo Backup. Its free version has all the features required to complete the task before us, so download the free version and install it just like any other Windows program. WARNING. Make sure you click the Configure link on the Install Additional Software page and uncheck all the boxes, otherwise EaseUS will try to install some related crapware along with the disk cloning tool.
Data backup. We can't stress this enough. It's downright stupid to start messing with your hard drive without a backup. Check out our guide to backing up your computer and make sure you have a complete backup of your important data before proceeding.
Windows System Recovery Disk. It's a tool anyway. To avoid damaging your Master Boot Record, you will be able to appear on a Windows repair disk and fix it in minutes. Follow these instructions for Windows 7 and these instructions for Windows 8 or 10. Be sure to print a copy of our bootloader repair guide so you can fix it if you need to. No. Do it. Burn this CD and print this article - if you find it, it will save you the trouble of finding another computer to create a bootable CD.

Now let's move on to the instructions on how to How to transfer a system from HDD to SSD?

Step One: Remove Your Current HDD

If you're upgrading to a drive that's smaller than your current one, which is often the case if you're upgrading to an SSD, you'll run into issues right off the bat. There is not enough space on your destination disk for all your files!

To check the capacity of each drive, connect the SSD to your computer and wait for it to appear in Windows Explorer. Right click on each drive and select " Properties" In the two screenshots below, you can see that the used space of our old drive (left) (141 GB) is more than what our new drive (right) (118 GB) can hold.

You'll probably encounter something similar. Therefore, before transferring data, you need to clean your current hard drive.

Start by deleting any files you don't need. This means that old movies, TV shows, TV series, music, old backups and everything else take up a lot of space. Remove any programs you no longer use, then run Disk Cleanup to get rid of any other unwanted file on your system. You can even run a program like CCleaner to make sure everything is squeaky clean.

This will help a little, but in some cases it may not be enough. If you manage to delete files, this means that you will need to find a new place to store personal files such as your photos, documents, movies, music, etc. because they will not fit in your new drive.

You have several options:

External hard drive: if you have external hard drive(which you don't use for important backups!), it's time to use it. You will need to move all your precious files to it to shrink your partition Windows.
Second internal drive: This isn't usually an option for many laptop users, but if you're a desktop user, you can buy a large, cheap secondary hard drive and transfer your files to that. You can even move the location of your documents, music, and other folders after migration, so Windows never misses a beat.
Cloud Storage: If you don't have extra hard drives, you can move those extra files to a cloud solution like Dropbox or OneDrive. Just keep in mind that if you don't have your personal files stored in the cloud, it may take a while (like days or even weeks) to download them, so just be prepared. Once you've moved all your stuff to your cloud folders, you can unmount them to free up disk space.

Remember, since your new hard drive may be smaller than your old one, you'll need to find a new permanent location to store them, so choose the solution that works best for you in the long run.

Step Two: Update the SSD Firmware

SSD is, technologically, a new product on the market. Some of the earliest generation SSDs had various bugs and issues that were only banished with significant firmware updates.

Each drive company has a different methodology for updating the firmware - some require a reboot using a special CD to flash the drive, and some allow you to flash the firmware from Windows if the drive is not the primary OS. OCZ, for example, has one of the aforementioned Windows tools (see screenshot above). Visit your drive manufacturer's website to learn more about your drive and how to update the firmware. Now is the best time to update the firmware as there is zero risk of data loss since you haven't copied anything yet.

As you have already noticed, transferring a system from hdd to ssd is very simple. The main thing is to follow the instructions.

Step Three: Cloning Your Drive Using EaseUS Todo Backup

Now it's time for the main event. Launch the EaseUS app and tap "Clone" on the home screen. This application will help transfer system from HDD to SSD.

First select the source drive. This will be your current Windows system drive. Our system drive consists of three partitions: the active boot partition, the actual Windows partition, and the recovery partition. We want to clone all three, so we're just going to put a check next to the hard drive to make sure they're all selected. Click Next to continue.

Now you need to select the SSD as the destination. In our case, this is "hard drive 4" containing 119 GB of unallocated space. Make sure you select the correct drive or you may lose your data!

Place the check on it and then check the " Optimize for SSD", which will give you the best performance out of your final Windows installation.

EaseUS will show you what your resulting drive will look like. In some cases, you may need to make some adjustments. For example, on my SSD, EaseUS wanted to make the boot and recovery partitions much larger, even though they contain less than a gigabyte of data. I would rather have this space on my main Windows partition, so I needed to resize it before proceeding.

To resize these sections, first select it and then drag the handles that appear between sections, just as you would resize the Explorer window.

I then resized the main Windows partition to fill the rest of the empty space.

Depending on the location of your drive, you may have to change things differently. When you're done, click OK to continue. Double check that everything looks correct and click Continue to begin the cloning operation.

If you receive the following warning, click OK to continue.

The actual length of the operation will depend on how large your source disk is, as well as the speed of the storage media and your computer. For us it took about 5 minutes. Transfer system from HDD to SSD It turned out to be even faster than we thought.

If any errors occur during this process, you may need to use a third-party defragmentation tool on your current system drive—in some cases, system files sitting at the end of the drive can make resizing difficult.

When the operation is completed, click "Done".

As you can see in the following screenshot, our new system drive is already showing up in Explorer. All that's left is to start using it.

To do this, the following steps are quite simple. Turn off your computer, remove the old drive, and install the new one in the same location. Restart your computer and it will automatically boot from your new drive.

If you're using a desktop computer and want to keep the old drive in place - perhaps as a backup or storage device, then you'll need to boot into your system BIOS (usually by holding down the Remove button until the Windows boot logo appears). From there you'll You will need to specify your BIOS on the new drive as the first one to boot. You can follow our USB boot instructions for this - just select your new hard drive instead of a disk or USB drive in the instructions.

Either way, when you reboot, you should find that your SSD is now listed as the C: drive. (If it's not, double check that you followed the above steps correctly.)

Step Four: Place the Finishing Touches on Your SSD

Once your new system drive is up and running, you'll need to do a few final things to make sure everything is working as it should and in tip-top shape. Here's what we recommend.

Make sure TRIM is enabled. TRIM is a special set of commands that help SSDs manage empty disk space efficiently (if you're interested, you can read more here). Open a command prompt and enter the following command:

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

This long command has a very simple output: either 0 or 1. If you get 1, TRIM is not enabled. If you get 0, TRIM is enabled. If you need to enable it, enter the following command:

fsutil behavior set DisableNotify 0

Make sure defragmentation is disabled. There is no need to defragment the SSD, and in fact it is not recommended. Windows should handle this automatically, but it doesn't hurt to check. Open the Start menu and type dfrgui in the start box to open Disk Defragmenter. Click the Schedule button, then click Select Disks. Uncheck "SSD" (this should be your C: drive) and click OK.

Recover personal files. Here you have to make some decisions. While it's possible that your documents and maybe even your photos will fit on your new SSD, it's unlikely that your videos and music files will, meaning you'll need to keep them somewhere else, like a second internal drive (you By the way, you can use your old drive for this) or an external hard drive.

If you want, you can even point your special user folders to this new location, so Windows will always search them first for matching files. Simply right-click on your Documents, Music, or other custom folders and select Properties > Location > Move... to move them.

A word about other SSD things and tricks. Be careful when setting up these simple fixes. Many SSD guides suggest improving performance by disabling Superfetch (there is dubious evidence that this setting improves performance at all) or disabling the page file (which reduces the number of writes to the SSD, but can cause programs to crash if they run out of RAM). These days, you won't have to work hard to keep your SSD running at its best.

conclusions

The tweaks suggested here will definitely improve performance and will not have any negative side effects. Use caution when deploying tweaks that you find in other guides and forum posts. And remember: modern SSDs may have limited writes, but they are much less limited than older style SSDs. Talk about avoiding things that write to your drive is pretty outdated. Chances are you'll replace your computer before you get close to wearing out your SSD!

Congratulations! You've cloned your drive, saved yourself hours of reinstalling Windows and tweaking your applications, and you're ready to enjoy a faster, quieter system drive.

If you still have any questions about how to transfer a system from HDD to SSD, write them in the comment form on our website.

Hello, friends! I often had the opportunity to transfer Windows 7 and Windows 8 from a simple HDD to an SSD. I mainly used the following programs: Acronis True Image, Paragon Migrate OS to SSD, Paragon Home Expert 12 and AOMEI Partition Assistant Home Edition. The longest, but most interesting, way to transfer Windows 7 from HDD to SSD using the tools built into Windows.

If you are interested in the article, visit where they are collected all publications on our site on the very interesting topic of transferring operating systems from one storage device to another.

The easiest and surprisingly fast waytransfer Windows 7 from HDD to SSDusing the program Paragon Migrate OS to SSD , with the help of this program I suggest that you today transfer the system to an SSD.

The program is paid, it costs a fortune 390 rubles. If you have Windows 8, then only the latest version of the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 3.0 program is suitable for migration.

Website http://www.paragon.ru/home/migrate-OS-to-SSD

Important Note: If you have Paragon Home Expert 12 installed, then the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD utility is included in the package of this program.

If you want to transfer Windows 7 from HDD to SSD using Paragon Home Expert 12, go to the end of this article, there are short instructions there.

After transferring the operating system from the HDD to the SSD, you need to check the correct alignment of the disk partitions relative to the SSD architecture. Aligned partitions ensure maximum performance, speed and longevity of your SSD, trust me, this is very important. We will check the correctness of partition alignment using the free utility AS SSD Benchmark.

How to migrate Windows 7 from HDD to SSD using Paragon Migrate OS to SSD program

So, pay attention to the Disk Management window of my computer, there is a 250 GB hard drive, divided into two partitions, on one of them - drive (C:) there is a Windows 7 operating system, we will transfer it to a 120 GB SSD solid state drive, representing unallocated space.

Launch the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD program. Next.

The program automatically found my SSD drive and is ready to transfer the operating system. Pay attention to the item “Use all available space for the partition with OS”, be sure to check the box here and all the space on the solid-state drive will be allocated to create one new disk (C:) with the transferred Windows. After all, solid-state drives are used mainly only for installing the operating system.
If you click on “Please select what folders should be copied”, then you can select the folders you need to copy. I need the whole Windows, so I'll leave everything as is.

Click on the Copy button.

A suspiciously short migration process occurs without any reboots.

I couldn’t help but remember the good old Acronis True Image, where you had to create an image of the operating system, then deploy it to an SSD, although Acronis works flawlessly, it takes several times longer.

While we were talking about Acronis, the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD program had already transferred our Windows 7 to an SSD. The final window in which we are offered to boot from the SSD. Let's reboot.

Now you need to enter the BIOS and set it to boot from the SSD. Select Boot Menu (F8).

Using the arrows on the keyboard, select our solid-state drive and press Enter. The computer is booting from the SSD.

Note: What I like about UEFI BIOS is that it has its own bootloader, which accommodates all existing bootloaders and will never get confused in them. The UEFI BIOS remembers the last operating system you loaded and will load it exactly next time. Switching between operating systems (no matter how many of them you have installed) is simple, fast and error-free.

If you have a regular BIOS, then the transfer should also occur without problems. The only thing you need to do is to find in it the parameter responsible for the primacy of Hard Disk Drives (AMI BIOS) or Hard Disk Boot Priority (AWARD BIOS) and set your SSD as the first device. How to find these parameters can be found in.

I think you managed it and booted from the SSD into the transferred system. We go to Disk Management and see this picture - the system has been transferred.

Quite often, many users have a question related to how to transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD, since solid-state drives are much faster. Now we will look at why this is necessary, as well as some basic methods that allow this operation to be carried out without much effort and time.

Why is transfer to SSD necessary, and what benefits does the user get?

First, let's decide why we should try to do such operations at all. The whole point is that, as mentioned above, SSD-type hard drives have faster data reading speeds compared to regular HDD drives.

This suggests the simplest conclusion: after Windows 10 is transferred to an SSD drive, the system will work much faster, as they say, “fly”. It is supposed to copy only the operating system to the new hard drive, without any third-party garbage. With all this, if you give preference to some specific software products for or intended for transferring a system from HDD to SSD, in some cases you can copy only the system itself, clone Windows with all programs and user files installed in it, even create images with all user settings . Here, as is already clear, the main condition is the choice of the appropriate program depending on what you need to get in the end. But first things first.

General principles of transferring a system to an SSD drive

Let’s make a reservation right away: all those users who believe that a quick transfer of Windows 10 to an SSD can be done by simply copying all files and folders, even hidden ones, are deeply mistaken. Nothing good will come of this, and the system itself simply will not boot. Here you need to use a different technique. In this case, it is possible to use both Windows 10 and third-party software products specifically designed for this. Transferring Windows 10 to an SSD in both the first and second cases is quite simple and does not require much effort or special knowledge.

Let's consider several possible options, especially since none of them should cause difficulties even for the most unprepared or novice user, since in most cases all processes are as automated as possible.

Windows 10 Native Tools

First, let's look at the native capabilities of Windows 10. Transferring the system to an SSD drive is quite possible if you use the backup and recovery section, which can be accessed from the standard Control Panel. This is only due to the fact that in this case, Windows 10 will be transferred to an SSD without third-party programs, which greatly simplifies the task.

Here you will first need to create a system image to transfer it to a prepared drive, and then select the option to create a recovery disk from which to boot when replacing the HDD with an SSD. When the process begins, you will need to provide a link to the system image saved on the new drive. But the old hard drive needs to be disconnected to avoid troubles. If in the future you need to use the old hard drive, you should completely remove the boot partitions from it, since otherwise there is a risk of abnormal conflicts and failures. Actually, this is how Windows 10 can be transferred to an SSD on a laptop or on a stationary terminal, provided that the HDD is replaced with an SSD. Another thing is that you will have to open the laptop yourself, as they say, at your own peril and risk. You can, of course, use the services of service centers, but after replacement they will transfer the system to a new hard drive themselves, and this is an extra material cost. In addition, if the laptop is under warranty, opening the seals will only lead to the fact that in the future, if there is any breakdown, no one will accept it for free warranty service. So first think carefully about whether such things are worth doing.

But reviews from users and specialists about this method are ambiguous: some consider it the simplest, others, on the contrary, see it as unnecessary actions and are more inclined to use narrowly targeted utilities.

Most suitable utilities

It is much easier to use specialized programs that are designed specifically for such purposes. With all their diversity, some utilities of this kind are intended exclusively for hard drives of strictly certain manufacturers. So, for example, something like Acronis True Image is perfect for Western Digital drives, for Seagate hard drives the Seagate Disk Wizard utility is used, for Samsung drives the “native” Samsung Data Migration utility is suitable, etc. But the most universal, in terms of automation and security of all operations performed that will be required to carry out the migration, is Paragon Migrate OS.

Migrate Windows 10 to SSD: Paragon Migrate OS to SSD

There are quite a lot of utilities in this area among Paragon products. A special place is occupied by the software packages Paragon Migrate OS to SSD, Paragon Drive Copy 15 Professional, Paragon Disk Manager 15 Professional and “Home Expert 15”. Alas, unfortunately, these are paid utilities. However, you cannot ignore them.

Actually, the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD program itself is a real step-by-step Wizard, which is aimed at maximizing the automation of the system transfer process. Without going into the technical details of the process, we note that you can save space and time if you do not move your own documents or files to the new drive, having first unchecked them in the appropriate window. Well, the Master will almost independently perform all the necessary actions. After copying is complete, you must remember to change the BIOS settings, where the new SSD drive should be specified as the main (first) device.

Migration using Acronis True Image

Migrating Windows 10 to an Acronis True Image SSD is just as easy. But here for Western Digital hard drives it is better to use a special release of the WD Edition modification program. If your computer has a hard drive from this particular manufacturer, the application will become an indispensable assistant.

The whole process boils down to, after installing and launching the application, selecting the recommended (automatic) system transfer mode in the disk cloning section. Of course, this can take quite a lot of time. Everything here will depend on the amount of data being transferred and the speed of the old hard drive. However, the process itself is simple for a user who is not even familiar with such specifics.

Using the Seagate DiscWizard utility for Seagate drives

Here is another program for transferring Windows 10 to SSD drives. As is already clear, it should be used exclusively in cases where the computer or laptop has at least one hard drive from this manufacturer.

If we talk about how Windows 10 is transferred to an SSD, we can say that this application almost completely repeats the previous program and eliminates the user’s participation in the migration process almost one hundred percent. It goes without saying that there is an in-house Master who will carry out the entire process from start to finish.

Samsung Data Migration Program

Samsung hard drives have their own utility that works no worse than those described above.

Here, a special step-by-step Transfer Wizard is used in the same way, but the main advantage of this utility is the use of the selective data transfer mode. This is very important, because, you see, the size of an SSD is still much smaller than that of conventional hard drives. Well, as for the practical side, here, again, the user’s participation in the process comes down only to confirming automated actions. In most cases, you don’t even need to select any specific parameters - the program will do everything on its own.

Free Macrium Reflect app

Finally, you can migrate Windows 10 to an SSD using the free Macrium Reflect package. What is most captivating is that the program does not care at all what manufacturers’ hard drives are used as the initial and target disks.

In addition, the versatility of this software product (as evidenced by reviews of people who have used it) also lies in the fact that the program can not only clone hard drives or their partitions, but also quite simply creates boot disks and images, and also supports transferring data to based on Windows PE. Actually, this particular application can be classified as “all-in-one”.

What else should you pay attention to?

Finally, it remains to add that programs such as AOMEI Backupper Standard were not specifically considered here. Although this utility is distributed free of charge, however, when performing a transfer operation, it requires you to first create a flash drive, and only then, when loading from such media with the priority set in the BIOS, the Clone Wizard starts. However, without talking about the technical side, it can be used equally for Windows and Linux systems.

As for the choice of the means by which a solid-state hard drive will be produced, here, as they say, it is a personal matter. By the way, we did not delve particularly deeply into some aspects related to calling certain functions from the command line, because the average user, in general, does not need this. Extra headache. It’s much easier to launch a specialized utility and wait for the cloning process to complete.

What to prefer?

If you don’t have a suitable utility at hand, you can use your own Windows. Moreover, this applies not only to the “ten”, which in our case was taken as a basis. All these procedures are carried out in the same simple way in both the “seven” and the “eight”. The question here is rather different. The fact is that third-party utilities and applications work much more efficiently; at least, the simplicity of the performed and, in most cases, automated actions is beyond doubt. But as for the cloning speed, you shouldn’t delude yourself - you simply cannot jump higher than the read or write speed of the desired and target hard drives. So, even if you want to finish the processes quickly, you will have to be patient.

Otherwise, even when using the system’s own tools, no one should have any difficulties. But the presence of a Wizard in almost any specialized utility allows you not only to track each step with the action being performed, but also simply not to participate in the already highly automated process. Well, unless you have to press several buttons or select the desired sections or custom folders and programs for cloning.

If you are interested in the article, visit where they are collected all publications on our site on the very interesting topic of transferring operating systems from one storage device to another.